No time for update today so will do tomorrow. Getting "killed" at the tables though!

Meanwhile, I will share this from my main blog....



I be. I am.
No future. No past.
When I am being I am immersed in being, not looking for something in the future, not trying to overcome, dissolve or emulate the past.
The future and the past are not what LIFE is.
Life is now, this moment.
I embrace this moment always and I am always in one of these states… Acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm.

Good stuff. I'm trying to do this better every day too.

Poker Results (3 days) - 19/3/2016

So three days worth of poker results today. Had a mad day yesterday trying to sort out house purchase and clear some things up before holiday so no chance to write. House purchase still not cleared up so will still be trying to sort it while on holiday it seems!

Profit/loss: -$104
Hours played: 8.25
Hands played: 1252

Hands commented: 15
Hands reviewed: 13
Reviewed workbook: 3x
Studied poker video: 3x

Sleep: 7.4h , 6.25h , 6.25h

So yeah, was a bit manic last few days as house purchase has been going wrong all over the place! Solicitor has been making many mistakes delaying everything. We were supposed to complete last night but it fell apart and now they are trying to agree a suitable date for all 6 parties in the chain.

I do not think this affected me at the tables, just standard run. Had more NL100 action last few days and did not get the good results. No problem, keep at those buggers!

Felt somewhat owned when a guy who bought in with broken stack min check check raised my double barrel (first hand) on the turn and I called with the nut flush draw thinking he is nutted and I got massive implied odds, I missed the river and he checked so I checked back and he turned over second pair! Don't see that line much from the fishes!

We go on holiday on Monday so not sure I will update results now until end of March. March is not looking too good at the moment!

Hopefully the house purchase will go through though and it will be a great month for the property portfolio instead! Oh and a great month for holidays too!!!

Look after my blog while I am away and stay happy amigos!

Thought For The Day #2... You cannot define a person's happiness by measuring their material wealth, their possessions, their intelligence or, in fact, with anything measurable. The human race (aka the human mind) will try to convince you that you can but I assure you that you cannot.

Great! Then you are following a path that will bring you great fulfilment, contentment, happiness, joy and peace! Keep going!

Just a quickie as about to get in the car and go on holiday!!!!!!!!

Last week lost $63 but it was a good week as found a (lazy) leak!

Total is $3463 of $10k done.

Starting 100 push up challenge for a bit of fitness fun...



Have a great week amigos!

H O L I D A Y !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't seen this thread for more than a year and you are STILL grinding!!! This is just amazing, a true inspiration!

Fantastic holiday!!! Back to work today (Wednesday) after 10 days off and will also get back to the tables tonight.

Have come back with extra zest and passion for life so hold onto your pants amigos!!!

House purchase is completing tomorrow so the portfolio grows - as does the work load

Haha! Thanks for the kind words! Where have you been all this time!? Enjoying life I hope!!

At last!!!

House purchase went through today!

Offer was accepted 29th September 2015 and it finally went through today!

Actually it could not have happened at a better time. Stamp duty for second homes increases TOMORROW and would have added £4000+ to the costs. Also it would have just been empty for longer so it has saved a fortune in mortgage payments too!!!

I am aware I am entering this post late. With only one thing to say.

If you are having sugar cravings, stick to your regular diet. Have cinnamon in some hot water and sip that. It beats your cravings and acts in the same way. Or if you are training, just a spoonful of honey. Cinnamon work wonders as well as honey.

Other then that I am enjoying this a lot! inspiring journey man.

March 2016 Poker Results Summary

Hi friends!

What a month March was!!!

So many fantastic things happened in March... I added another house to the property portfolio, we went on a fantastic family holiday, I had ten days of rest and recuperation (including the holiday) with my family and I also got really pumped about my personal fitness and health for reasons I will share more about in the near future.

This post is about poker results though - and they are not so good!

Figures for March 2016:-

Profit = +$160
Hours played = 55.5
Hands played = 8966
$/hr = $2.88

What can I say!? It was a very short month so hands played and hours played are the lowest of this challenge. Profit is also the lowest of the challenge (but at least it is profit right!?). As I said last month when I won $1020 there was probably some variance involved- hopefully there was some bad variance this month!

Hands commented; hands reviewed; review notes; study poker video: All of these were done to target.

Average sleep per night: 6 hours 35 minutes.
This is not as much as I would like. I think the time has come to stop looking at this and accept that six and a half hours is going to be normal for me. I will keep my eye on it but will let it be for a while now.

Times meditated: 19.
That is every single work day/poker day plus a few others. I actually feel that I am so proficient at meditating now that I can do it through the day at will (so maybe I meditate hundreds of times a month now!?). Probably one of the best things I do in my life!

Self improvement study: 15 hours.
No reading on holiday. I have a few books lined up though so April could be busy!

Journal; write gratitude list; write purpose; blog: All done to target.
Writing my gratitude list and my purpose is massive for me now, I cannot recommend it highly enough!

Summary: A great month for completing tasks but not so great for results. That, my friends, is poker and it is one of the reasons why poker is actually a great tool for life improvement!

$10,000 Journey Update



Total profit = $3469

Time is really rolling on in this challenge now. I think April is going to be a big month in deciding whether I make it or not. I have loads of (great) things planned that are more important than poker right now but I also will still devote a lot of attention to my game.

Bring on April - I am more than ready!

Hi there! Thanks for the kind words and the fantastic advice - much appreciated.

Hi amigos!

I am going to rebuild my website (and pimp my personal blog).

I want to share my good fortune and my zest for life with as many people as possible.

(Hopefully most of you know me well enough to know that I will not be selling anything, everything will be FREE!)

I hope this is not too cheeky but over the years some people have given me some really nice (and appreciated) comments in here and I would like to use them as testimonials on my site.

Rather than scout my blogs post by post - if anybody has a nice word or two (or sentence/paragraph) they would let me use as a testimonial then please please please write one in here or PM it to me.

Basically the idea is that people will see a good testimonial (or 10) and continue reading rather than click away.

Really appreciate anyone's help.

Thanks amigos,

Chris.

P.S. You could also email it direct to me at chris@thesuccesshabit.co.uk or even use this contact form here.

My Week - Purpose, poker, website & health (4/4/2016)

Hi friends!

Let's take a look at what happened this week in the life of the world's happiest man!

I have had a tremendous surge of inspiration recently that is telling me to share my massive positive energy with as many people as possible (I do not know where this inspiration comes from.)

When I look around at people, almost everywhere I look I see suffering*. I cannot sit and do nothing. I will try to reach as many people as possible and share my good fortune and try to show people the route to what I will describe as heaven!

Oh, and I will not do this for money or any personal gain. Of course it will give me tremendous satisfaction to hear that even one person transformed their life with just a tiny bit of help from my work, but that is not what this is about. This is my (secondary) purpose.

So, I have a few things to work on (but this “work” is enjoyable). I need to learn how to make a website, learn how to make my blogs look better, learn how to promote my material. Also, because something I often witness is people having serious problems with addictions (thinking being the worst of them, but drugs, alcohol, sex, food and many others too), I want to help. One thing I would like to do is improve my own health and fitness beforehand. It would be a lot easier to help somebody remove a food addiction, for example, if I was lean and “ripped” myself (as opposed to my present “cuddly” state ). Most of the other addictions I have experience of and have removed (thinking being my most recent and most important “cleanse”).

I have been working on all of these things over the last two weeks. I am doing my 100 Push Up Challenge (for which I will be doing a test tonight to check progress!), I have been eating really well, I have been doing a small amount of cardio (in preparation for a large amount of cardio) and I have been researching website/blog building/promotion. And I love it all!

$10000 Poker Challenge - Week 22

Let’s take a look at poker results for the week…

Due to my holiday it was only a 4 day week…

Profit = +$44
Hours played = 10
Hands played = 2016
$/hr = +$4.4/hr

In the short time I played I found some good fish to play but this week they had the better hands when we got to showdown! I like to do my bit for the poker economy and keep the fish interested!!!

I studied poker videos as previous but did not do any work on my poker notes. Sometimes something has to give to get everything done! I am not keeping records of my sleep at the moment but will rather just keep an eye on how I feel. Meditation daily as per normal (but this is for more than poker of course). Still writing gratitude list at least 5 times per week and writing out my inner and outer purpose 5 times also.

Challenge to date…



Profit = +$3507
Days gone = 154
Days to go = 125

Property

This week we finally completed our purchase of another property for the portfolio. It took 6 months to go through but the timing could not have worked out better for us. Plenty of work to be done on it to get it to the standard we want.

For those interested in figures I now have a 50% share of:-
£1,444,000 of property
£1,096,991 of mortgages
£347,000 of equity

Not bad for a hobby that I did to get me out of the pub!!!

Words Of Wisdom

People who are identified with thoughts and emotion often have this question… “When is IT going to happen for me, when am I going to hit the big time?”.

It is not going to happen for you (not like this), and if the thing that you think is IT does happen for you, even that will disappoint you. It will be a fleeting sensation and, before you know it, you will be looking for the next thing to try to “complete” yourself.


That's enough rambling for this week amigos!

To your fantastic life,

Chris.


*Suffering is not as terrible as one might first think. Suffering always leads to some form of enlightenment or awakening in the end. With good teaching and self awareness, however, one can awaken quicker and without having to endure as much suffering as life situations and the human mind will bring. I used to think I suffered terribly - but it all brought me to here so it was perfect.

$10,000 Journey - Lessons From Poker

Poker is such a beautiful game. It is a platform for many great lessons in life...

Results

To summarise my last few sessions... Free-fall!!!!!!!!

Over 3 sessions (10.5 hours) I have lost $197. Of course it is totally standard to lose this so I am joking (slightly). It is almost all at NL100 so it is approximately 2 buy-ins which is totally fine.


Damn Those Lucky Fish!

I have found some great action at the tables (when you see me write "great action" I mean "fish galore"!!!) but over the past week (maybe longer?) the fish have been realising their equity (of course I want to write "getting lucky" here but if I put it as "realising their equity" I feel a whole lot better about it!).


Fish In Action

My favourite hand was when fish min 3bet me so I 4bet big with my QQ and he called. Flop was A84 rainbow and he over bet donk jammed around 1.5x the pot so I snapped him off. He had 75 suited (does suited bit matter!?) and hit his gut-shot on the turn. My how I laughed !!


Lessons

So at the moment the run is just not in my direction. I have no problem with that at all and I understand it is all part of the game and my time will return.

I will just stay present, play to the best of my ability (given my current state) and when the luck turns better I will crush this NL100 and crush paying for our holidays!!!

If there is a big positive to take from this (and there always is) it is that all things that seem "bad" on the surface are in fact perfect. I use times like this as lessons, like they are my teachers. Any resistance to what is - what is happening and what is possible in this world - is futile. Learn, grow, be and thrive.

Poker is perfect for firstly learning your areas of weakness and then secondly for observing them and progressing in life. It can be brutal if you are an unconscious person, especially if you are not in control of your mind. Be present, observe your mind (and the tricks it plays on you), focus and crush.


Have a good few days amigos. Life is fantastic - enjoy it NOW!!!

Chris.

My Week - Poker, Health, Martial Arts

Fitness, Weight, Health

As I spoke about before I want to help people to live better lives. Some of this will involve exercise and a lot of it will involve mental health. I need to get my act together before trying to help others achieve change. As I said in my short article before "Be the change you would like to see" (attributed to Gandhi).

My mental health is tip-top at the moment but my physical health needs a kick in the butt!

I looked up my ideal weight for my height...

Height v Weight Chart (NHS UK)



I am 5'11" (180cm) so the top end of my "healthy weight" is around 12st 10lb (80.7kg).

I am currently 14st (88.9kg) so I would like to lose 1st 4lb (8.2kg).

(Just to say here I know these charts do not work for everyone but I am Mr.Average so it should be close for me)

I could lose that weight by juice fasting but this time I want to build up strength and fitness at the same time.

To start I will jump rope (skip) because if I start running straight away my old knees will start causing me havoc!!!

I am also doing my challenge to do 100 consecutive push-ups. I will add the video of how many I can do now later this week!

Martial Arts

I am feeling a drive to take up martial arts again. I think it is because it is a great way to be healthy both physically and mentally. It would be good for me to get really good at a martial art - so good I could train other people. That is something I would love to do actually. I think there are tonnes of mental benefits to martial arts on top of the obvious health benefits.

I am going to join a Wing Chun class and see how I like it. Of course time is a very big obstacle to me but I overcame time before and will do it again

Poker Results for Week 24

Hit a rough patch lately...

A full week of losing this week

Week 24 profit/loss = -$150

I am running into some bad variance lately. Since I got back from holiday in fact. Last two sessions were actually a bit better though so hopefully this is already turning around and can go on and crush April

$10,000 Journey Graph to date



As you can see it has been very flat line for 25 days or so now.

As I say, I am fairly confident at the moment I am just running bad so I am not going to change anything for the short term. If it goes on for another 10 days though I will start to tear a few things apart to find out whether it is me or my schedule or what it might be!!

Website

Have improved navigation on here this week and made some amendments to articles posted. Have got a lot of things on my “must do” list for the website so need to get time management skills back into focus!

Mind

More great steps here. I am now becoming warrior like in my observation of my mind. When I see my mind taking over and starting to tell its stories I now notice it a lot quicker. I just cut myself immediately to the present moment and the thoughts dissolve. I refuse to be identified by past or future and live only for the present moment. I am aligned to and surrender to what is. Heavenly!




Have a great week!

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

"I often witness is people having serious problems with addictions (thinking being the worst of them, but drugs, alcohol, sex, food and many others too),"

Can you pls elaborate a bit what exactly you mean with "thinking" in this context.

I really love overthinking and planning things. That's an addiction i have and it brings me a lot of joy and satisfaction in my life. So I guess you might mean something different here.

Hi braindead (great name btw!)!

I am talking about "serious problems with addictions" here. When talking specifically about thinking this would be anything that is counter productive. Anything like "I am a failure", "John should work harder", "my dad should love me more", "I need to be XYZ to be happy" - there are tonnes of thoughts going around peoples heads that are negative for their lives and just cause suffering.

With regard to your point about loving thinking. That is great. Doing something you enjoy is what life is all about so you are doing that out of presence. If you ever get the feeling that it is counter productive for you then (and only then) you need to question it and see if it is really doing you harm or good.

Same as with sex and food I guess! If you really enjoy tonnes of these then go for it! If it is killing you or you are going to get put in prison then maybe do some work on it!

Thanks for the question, have a fantastic life!

14/04/2016 - Bad Beats and Winning???

Winning?

3 days = +$27

Well it isn't "crushing" but it’s a step in the right direction!

I have played a bit better the last 3 days. I still make some stupid (and expensive) mistakes on the river though. I rush my decision sometimes and my thought process just completely disappears. I go into “clicking buttons” mode and will make a call based on a thought like “just in case he is bluffing” rather than the logical decision “he could be bluffing here but I need him to be bluffing 33% of the time to make a profitable call”.

I think this usually happens later in my sessions. I can excuse myself slightly when I consider this is always at the end of an extremely long day. On the other hand I have been doing this long enough and should be able to control it.

Part of my warm up now is to remind myself to give myself some space. That means when I need to make a decision I take a little bit longer and allow myself to make a conscious decision rather than a rushed unconscious one. The fact I have noticed the actual problem here gives me a great chance of overcoming it. I won’t fight it as such, I will just watch it arise and give it space to disappear again.


Bad Beats

Although I am not affected mentally by bad beats I thought it would be fun to post a couple! These two hands happened within seconds of each other with only 5 minutes of my session to go. They turned a 3 hour grind into a losing session rather than a nice winning one…

Hand #1 - Tripped up!

Hero (SB): 92.2 BB
BB: 58.32 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

Hero raises to 3 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) T 9 3
BB checks, Hero bets 4.5 BB, BB raises to 55.32 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 49.82 BB

Turn: (114.64 BB, 2 players) T

River: (114.64 BB, 2 players) J

Hero shows A A (Two Pair, Aces and Tens)
(Pre 81%, Flop 80%, Turn 5%)
BB shows 6 T (Three of a Kind, Tens)
(Pre 19%, Flop 20%, Turn 95%)
BB wins 113.64 BB


Pretty standard hand. This guy had just sat me and nothing special happened other than him buying in with a broken stack (so I assume he is a fish). Once he jams the flop here it is never (well hardly ever!) a nutted hand. Fish prefer to trick you with the nuts and they are scared you will fold.

Tip: If this happens to you do not call it a bad beat (unless you are writing a blog) just say to yourself “oh that’s cool, he realised his equity”!!! Unfortunately he sat out immediately he won the hand so no chance to get it back. That was when I smashed the window!

Hand #2 - Tripped up again!?

Hero (SB): 117.42 BB
BB: 20.98 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

Hero raises to 3 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 6 J 4
BB checks, Hero bets 4.26 BB, BB raises to 17.98 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 13.72 BB

Turn: (41.96 BB, 2 players) J

River: (41.96 BB, 2 players) 3

Hero shows Q Q (Two Pair, Queens and Jacks)
(Pre 86%, Flop 76%, Turn 5%)
BB shows J 8 (Three of a Kind, Jacks)
(Pre 14%, Flop 24%, Turn 95%)
BB wins 39.64 BB


Very standard hand. Due to small stacks he can have a wide range here and there is no "mistake". It was just funny that it happened within seconds of the other hand. Fortunately the window was already smashed so I was okay by then!


$10,000 Journey

Here is the graph of the journey so far




100 Push-up Challenge

I am currently trying to get myself in superhuman shape! I would like to be able to do 100 consecutive push ups. In my initial test a couple of weeks ago I managed to do 21 (I was happy with that!). Take a look at the video of my test after 2 weeks of training. Before judging (also known as laughing at me) please remember I am a 45 year old office worker.




Weight

I am trying to get down to 178lbs (80.7kg). I am jumping rope (skipping) and doing my push-ups and eating better (and less).



I feel it is going well so far. Still a way to go!


That’s it for today amigos!

To your fantastic life!

Chris.

Poker Results

This week I made a very small profit of $18. Volume was very poor over the week, in fact I only played 13.75 hours. This weekend I had a rare opportunity for a night out with Helen (thanks to mother-in-law offering to look after the kids) so I lost a night at the tables. So the lack of hours coupled with still running a bit poor I was “happy” to make a profit at all.

Again I had some great EV+ fish to play but it was just not happening for me. I even had one guy who would open fold the flop if he completely missed it! He bought in with 100bb and by the time I had stacked him the poker site had taken 50bb leaving me the other 50bb. Terrible player but if they hit flushes and full houses it takes a while to beat them!

Redline

I did notice recently that my redline (shows money won without seeing the showdown) was sloping down a lot again. This is what usually happens when I am not fully focused OR if I get a bit lazy. I should really have a fairly flat redline with my play style so have been looking to make sure I am picking dead money up.

Here is redline graph for last 2000 hands…



You can see how I lost/gave away around $200 in the first 1100 hands by not taking the easy money. I got back onto it in the last 1200 hands and it looks much better. Sample is small but nice to see immediate positive result!

Overall, during this run I am just trying to keep patient at the tables. Keep doing what I know, not getting frustrated, accepting what is and it will turn around again soon enough.

$10,000 Journey

This break even stretch has gone on for quite a number of days now! Something like 40 days now of the flat line. In terms of hands played it is only around 15000 hands though. That is super standard for variance. Even over 100,000 hands you cannot guarantee to realise a true win rate. Hence, nothing to worry about here.

Of course this break even stretch is damaging my chances of hitting my target of making $10,000 profit by 1st August very difficult now. I am hoping that NL100 is going to start treating me a bit better soon and I can have a couple of rip-roaring months to get me nearer to the target. Still got 110 days or so left so let’s make it happen!

Here is the graph so far…



Send me some run goooood!!!



Health, fitness, weight

Martial Arts

Tonight I am going for a complimentary class of Wing Chun Kung Fu!!! I have been itching to get back to martial arts for a long time now but have concentrated my efforts in other areas. I trained in Tae Kwon Do for 3 or 4 years before and I think getting back into martial arts is going to be great for my physical and my mental health. I am really excited about this, it is a new direction of martial art for me but I can’t make the timetable of my old TKD school and something is pulling me to Wing Chun so will try it out - cannot wait to give it a go!

Weight

Weight has remained the same this week which is fine.



Still got lots to lose but I hurt my achilles somehow this week AND I really struggled with my pushups. I actually have had two attempts at repeating a workout that I completed a week ago and have not been able to do it. Basically I am at a stage where I am trying to do 120 push ups split (unevenly) over 5 sets with 90 seconds rest between sets. I did this particular workout once (my ninth pushup workout overall) but was not satisfied with my form so went to do it again 2 days later and fell short by 2 push ups in the last set. Then I tried it again another 2 days later and fell short in set 4 by 2 pushups and fell short in set 5 by 4 pushups. Was in agony and had to stop to prevent risk of injury. I am having a rest period in case it is because my muscles are fatigued. Will probably not push up at all for 4 days.

Old Age

We had a leak in our kitchen at the beginning of the weekend! On Sunday I pulled out the cooker, the dishwasher and the washing machine to find the leak. I could not believe the gunk and the mess that had collected behind there but it is under work tops so has not been touched for 8 years!!! Disgusting! Anyway, fortunately it was a pipe that was leaking (rather than needing a new machine) so after all the cleaning up was done we went out and got a replacement hose and fingers crossed all is good now!

After fixing that I decided to attack our garden! I have never had any desire whatsoever to do any gardening (Helen loves it) but our garden is under siege from wild garlic! It is incredible stuff as it gets EVERYWHERE. So I spent a couple of hours digging it out and dumping it in our waste bin (so much so that I think they will refuse to empty it). Then I quickly cleaned my car with help from the kids. We all got absolutely soaking wet of course.

Once I stopped “working” I started to seize up within minutes! I was washing my hands in the bathroom and caught myself in the mirror. I said to myself “Crikey Chris, you are 45 not 25 mate, you gotta take it a bit easier kiddo!!!”. It was all good fun though, just will probably ache a bit tomorrow eh!!?


That’s it for this week folks, next time I hope to have another push ups video and I am writing an article along the lines of “How To Be Happy” which I will share with you as soon as it is done.


Have a great few days.

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

Hey Chris

If I were to guess, you are suppose to have a losing redline, only slightly though. I do believe the competition that you are playing they like the call button a bit too much, though because of that your blue line is suppose to be over compensating and be making a ton there. I'm glad to see that you are winning now was super sad to see that you couldn't previously as I see the work ethic and the results haven't come into place, anyway what I would focus on is trying to find someone to get some future assistance with in order to improve your game slightly more every time, or have some study time to yourself that can allow that so you can have a better winrate

$10,000 Journey - A Change Of Luck?

Results

Much better results from the last 3 sessions!!!

Profit = +$78
Hours played = 6.75

Of course nothing changed - just on the better side of variance! At last!!!

The Poker Gods Love Me Again!!!

Seems a long time since I won a big pot so here is couple from last night…

Hand #1 - Gotta Love The River Card!



This guy was very passive and also likes to slow play (small sample). This was the first time I had seen him betting aggressively like this so I felt that AA/KK was quite possible.

Versus this guy had I not hit 2 pair on the river then I would almost certainly need to fold.

Hand #2 - Hitting The Nuts Versus Spew Monkey!



This guy was bonkers! Lots of crazy over-bets and raises.

I wanted to raise him somewhere and make some bets myself but I was also happy to let him spew rather than find a fold.

I did not expect him to call a hand that weak on the river so I probably could have raised him earlier as it turns out.

Disappearing Action???

This last few days I have found very little action at the heads-up tables. I know a lot of people are talking about the imminent death of heads-up poker but I have not really noticed much difference (other than losing Pokerstars) until these recent sessions.

Hopefully it is just a blip. If it continues long term I am prepared to move back to 6 max.

Variance

Of course Lady Variance did not let me completely off the hook!

Here a fish manages to give me brain ache…



I know this guy can limp/call 99 preflop and he also called 3rd pocket pair on the flop and 4th pocket pair on the turn.

Passive station = perfecto!!!

River is an easy bet/fold against him but hell it hurts when they have an over pair!!!

Another window smashed!!!

$10,000 Journey Progress



Nice to see a little upturn at last but it is too small!!! Need to see a massive upward slope and SOON!!!!

Fitness & Health

Weight

Dropped 2.75 pounds in 3 days which has come mostly from eating healthily with a small amount of exercise…



Very happy!

100 Push-up Challenge

Just took four days off push-ups. I was struggling to do my workout so decided to rest muscles.

Did a workout last night. Went back a step and just about managed to complete it without chest and shoulders exploding!

Martial Arts

Went to my free introductory class of Wing Chun Kung Fu on Monday night!

Totally loved it!

It was very different to the Tae Kwon Do training I did previously. Not better or worse, just very different.

I will be signing up for regular classes for sure, starting next Monday.


So that was a fantastic few days! May it all continue!

See you next week amigos.

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

Just reading your replies to my question now. Have been busy other things in my life that kept me away from 2+2 last weeks. That is normal, hehehe.
I like Poker, but it does play only like a low to medium role in my life. So every now and then have a couple of weeks break (or almost break = just play very little and not browsing in 2+2).

Thanks for positive comments about my name

Ok, i got your point now with what you mean with overthinking. and totally agree with it. Anyhow when it comes to me i really ment a different context. Thought after reading your comment i would more say that when it comes to me that the term "analyzing" is more approriate, rather then thinking. I am a very analytical type of person (kind of math geek as well) and i love to analyze and plan. So i could spent hours with sort of things like analyzing financial investments or poker situations or strategy games or things like that. But even i love i never focus entirely on it as this is a lonely one man thing and i need social interactions as well to be happy in my life. So all is fine.

The two others you mentioned...sex and food

sex...i am almost 50 years...so i still love it, but i am beyond the age where there is a risk that it focus too much on it

food...damn you got me
well serious, i would love to have your recent weight curve...i like food and i am struggling to do sport consistently enough to have a good healthy figure...i need to loose about 10-15kg to be in the area i feel optimal well....
it is like a longterm up and down swings...i am setting myself goals to get there, then i get it and then after like a couple of years i am slowly adding kilos and after 6-8 years i am back to the 10-15 kg too much ...have been throught this cycle already 3 times since my late 20's

$10,000 Journey - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Bad

Yes, you guessed it! It is more running bad!

For three days of play I have run 5 buy-ins under all-in EV (as well as some pretty bad instances of running into the better part of villains range in smaller pots).

But I don’t complain!

The Ugly

Of course you would like to see some graphs right!?



Pretty ugly right!?

(For those not used to seeing these graphs the yellow line shows how much money would have been won (or lost) if all-in pots went exactly to the EV each player has at the point of getting the money in.

The green line shows what was actually won or lost.)

So here you can see I lost 550 big blinds and if EV had been realised I would have only lost 50 big blinds. So 5 buy-ins.

It is standard. I have no problem with it at all. Just saying.

The Good

“What good can you find in that?” I hear you asking!?

Let me tell you…

On Friday I decided to dip my toes back into playing some 6 max.

As I have not played 6 max for 18 months and needed to get back into the feel of things I thought it would be good to play at NL10 rather than risk spewing money off finding my way again....

Almost all of the running bad in all-in EV was at NL10!!!!!!!

So I am only around $50 down in EV rather than if it had happened at NL50 or even worse at NL100!

If it had happened at NL100 I would be $500 down instead of just $50!!!

What a lucky boy I am!!!!

More Ugly

Take a look at these beauties…

Of course they are just bad beats but they are always fun!



And another...




Add in a couple of flips and you get the story. Standard (but painful) stuff.

As I say - I thank my lucky stars it was NL10 and not NL100.

Lessons Learned

I have said before that I do not get affected by bad variance and bad luck in poker. However, it was very noticeable to me while playing NL10 that I played a little less cautiously than usual.

I think I played nearer to “correct” than I might normally.

There may be a little lesson in here…

I play very under rolled in my opinion. I only have around 30 buy-ins for NL100 and it would definitely hurt me to lose $500 as I want this money to pay for my two holidays I have coming up in 2016.

Time To Think

I need to think hard for a while about what is in the near future for me.

Heads-up seems to be dying but luckily I do enjoy playing 6 max.

For now I am going to carry on playing some 6max on the side and probably play Zoom as I can jump in and out of the tables easier there.

I will keep records of heads up and 6 max separate so I can see how results go.

Fitness, Weight & Health.

Lost 2.5lbs over the last week!

Quite bizarre as had two chinese take aways and one indian takeaway! Did zero cardio and only two work outs!




Looking forward to starting Wing Chun Kung Fu properly this week and hopefully I can move on in my 100 Push-up Challenge. I struggled with push ups again this week so have laid back a bit to rebuild - not sure what is going on as seem to be going backwards!

This week need to get back to working out more and running better at the tables.

Let’s go!

Chris.

Nice reply, you sound very grounded.

Weight is a hard one in our society. These food manufacturers pay millions of pounds to get us hooked on their products so it is not easy for us I agree!!

Good luck to you sir.

$10,000 Journey - First Losing Month!!!

(But great weight loss )

Poker

Sad to report that April 2016 was the first losing month of my $10,000 Journey

Results

Profit/loss = -$70
Hours played = 73.5
Hands played = 18229 (9525 @ 6max)

Graphs etc

All Formats Combined




Heads Up Only




6 Max Only




Summary

Overall I am, of course, disappointed to have my first losing month of this challenge.

I am bored of talking about running bad so other than saying you can see some variance in my recent posts and also losing out in all-in EV a little that is enough about that!

I think my table selection was a little weak at times at heads up.

I struggled at 6 max but also found some big leaks. I will pursue those immediately!

Plan For May

I noticed my biggest problem when playing poker is not being able to compute information quickly enough. This became very apparent when playing 6 max at too many tables!!!

I am going to make May the month where I try specifically to make better river decisions. This is the point in the hand where I get totally overwhelmed by information and make completely irrational decisions.

I am also going to get some 6 max coaching.

I do not want to divulge who I will be coached by but it is someone who coached me before for a couple of sessions and someone who I have chosen specifically for his preferred coaching methods (he prefers to review and make videos than do live stuff which I struggle with tremendously).

Bankroll

My bankroll is going to get decimated on June 4th as I have got to pay the balance on one of our holidays! I need to pay out $1320 which, unless I smash May, is going to rule me out of NL100 for a while.

Add that to the coaching costs and things are going to get a bit tight!!!

Biggest pots in April

I was surprised to see the two biggest pots won and lost were both at 6 max. That seems a bit crazy to me (maybe I duffed the filters up somehow!).

Biggest Loss



In hand I was not sure whether to 4bet or call QQ in MP v CO 3bet. I think in retrospect it is better to 4bet/call here but at NL10 I think calling does okay.

Never folding on that flop.

Biggest Win



I think I played this hand very badly. I should 3bet the preflop isolator for value as his range will be wide here. As it happens the result is the same but it wasn’t pretty!

Weight, Fitness, Health

Weight

This department went really well!

I lost 12.25 pounds in April (5.5kg) with no difficulty at all…




When I say “no difficulty at all” I was always disciplined with my breakfast and lunch and was also disciplined with my evening meals in the week. At the weekends I had takeaways galore and was not so well behaved. I also did not exercise enough!!!

Fitness

I am really struggling to move on with my 100 Push-up challenge.

I am doing the same workout over and over but I have reached a plateau. Hopefully soon I will burst onto the next stage!

Not done any jump rope for a while which is not good enough - I will get back on it!

Started training in Wing Chun Kung Fu this month and really looking forward to developing that.

Property

Added another property to the portfolio on the 31st March. Did not get much done on the property so far but it is all in motion so hopefully will be ready to advertise to let soon enough!

Conclusion

A great month for weight and martial arts, a rubbish month for push ups and poker!!!

May here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good luck to all of you guys!

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

$10,000 Journey - Hello Lady Luck!!!

Luck At Last!!!

Finally, after hours and hours of grinding, thinking that Lady Luck does not love me any more, she goes all weak on me and sends me some nice winning hands!

Patience is rewarded!

Results (3 days)

Profit/loss = +$357
Hands played = 2522
Hours played = 8.75

Graph (3 days)



(I won a stack at SkyPoker too which is very rare for me!)


$10,000 Journey Graph



Hooray!!! A new high point at last!!!

This is the first time I went to a new high since 13th March.

Hopefully I can “march” on from here and get the money flowing in again!

Total profit to date = +$3756


Winning Hands

As it has been so rare lately I think I should show you my 3 biggest pots won!

Hand 1 - 93 suited.

When I face a min 3bet I sit up and pay attention!

Some fish will do this with KK+ as they love to “be tricky” and often it is Ax and Kx.

I have no idea what they are doing to be honest but I do know that they will stack off light when we hit and they will give great odds to draw so I call with a super wide range.



He had not done much out the ordinary until this hand, was just a bit passive and folding too much.

As I say, I have no idea!!!


Hand 2 - AQ

Here I face a more standard 3bet but villain looks like a postflop monkey.

Plan is to hit and never fold or take Ace high to showdown as cheap as possible.




Hand 3 - 88



So the money is going in here anyway.

This was only 4th or 5th hand versus this guy and I won 20bb in one hand where I rivered 2 pair and cracked his AA.

He looked like a reg other than he did not auto top up his stack.

On the turn the only thing I want to do is make sure I get his stack.

There is no reason for me to jam as he looks like he wants to get the money in and the board is not likely to get killed.

I call his 3bet and let him bet the river for me.

Easy game!

(When you hit the nuts )


Summary

More of this please - the kids might get an ice cream on holiday if this continues!

In fact they might even get one each!!!


Have a good few days.

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

Hi friends!

I have written a new article on my website 5 Steps To Happiness - How I Got Happy.

I hope you enjoy it and it helps you see how I am so happy in life!

To your fantastic life,

Chris.

Poker

Hurrah!

Best week for some time!

Felt like I was printing money after the last couple of dry months!

Results

Profit = +$250
Hands played = 4530
Hours played = 15.25

Graphs

6 max only





HU Only





Combined 6max & HU





So that is my best week for a while. Best since week commencing 1st February and I thank variance for it - very much!!!


Biggest Pot Of The Week



I messed up on the river as I thought he jammed all in.

Luckily I got the rest of his stack within the next few hands.


$10,000 Journey Update

Thanks to the better week the graph looks like this…




The last few weeks has been a big test for me mentally but I am fairly convinced it is just normal variance.

The best thing out of it is I am getting better and better at handling it.

Personal

Weight

Stayed around the same weight this week - that is positive thinking parlance for “I put on a quarter of a pound”!!!!!!!!!

This weekend involved a 10 hour drinking session with my best mate with a fantastic Indian meal to follow. A huge barbeque. A Chinese takeaway.





I think that kind of explains the sudden upturn at the end of the graph!!!


Fitness

Did one push up workout and successfully completed the work out that I have been struggling with for a few weeks.

Will still repeat it at least once more before adding some more reps in.

Trained once in Wing Chun and also started doing some squats to increase leg strength and hopefully flexibility in the longer term.


Other Stuff

Finished writing an article for my website last week titled “5 Steps To Happiness - How I Got So Happy”. Link here.


Have a great week everybody and crush the tables!

To your fantastic life,

Chris.